


Sing a Song of Circles

by Listless_Songbird



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Anthology, Being Lost, Nightmares, Statement Fic, unreality
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-23
Updated: 2019-08-23
Packaged: 2020-09-24 20:03:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20364316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Listless_Songbird/pseuds/Listless_Songbird
Summary: A series of Spiral statements written whenever insomnia kicks me on my ass.Chapter 1: The Singer in the WallsChapter 2: All Roads Lead to SomewhereChapter 3: Hello My Name is





	1. The Singer in the Walls

Statement of Gélio Helix regarding a creature in their walls. Statement recorded by Jonathan Sims. The Archivist.

**Statement Begins**

There is something in my walls.

I cannot hear it.

I cannot see it.

But I know it laughs and laughs and laughs at me. The sound echoes through my skull skipping past my ears that ring louder and louder everyday. It follows me into my dreams.

I am not supposed to talk about my dreams, to tell you in detail of them because dreams cannot be proven.

And thats what you do here right? Prove things? Make them true make them heard, make them seen?

So that’s why im not talking about my dreams.

Im talking about the thing in my walls.

Not all of them. It doesn’t like the wall besides the fireplace, or the small one that separates the kitchen from the dining room. They do change, the walls it avoids. Though I haven’t figured out why. But it means its not in every wall.

I went to a hotel, once. Of course I did, the thing never followed me outside my home before and so it was the next thing to do of course it was. It was wasn’t it? That was the logical thing to do. Cause-effect-plan-execution.

Logic.

It didn’t follow me. I know it didn’t. It wasn’t in the walls or in my dreams that

But it was there. It was inside my skin. The walls of my self my inner being myself as other.

And I laughed.

And my laughter peeled the paint on the walls in fractal swirls that I spent the night tracing until I fell asleep and dreamed of

So I went home.

Things changed. I think. Or perhaps it has always been this way. Where the walls peel away at night. The swirls brought to the surface if it stays still too long. But in the morning the paint is fixed.

Which is nice, I suppose.

I don’t have time to repaint my walls.

There’s a thing in my walls and its laughter follows me into my dreams that show me

I laugh with it. When I can’t sleep. Which is more and more these days. But I don’t need it not really. Because in the morning I am healthy and myself and ready for the day where I work and I socialize and I do everything I am supposed to do.

And I come home and the thing meets me at the door and I am glad for it’s impossibleness where I no longer have to be. And then I loose myself in fractals until its time to sleep.

And when I sleep? I dream of You. I walk through a yellow door and on the other side it is no where that is but it isn’t a

I see you in your chair with your logic and your tapes. You who knows the truth that I do not.

And you tell me sometimes.

And it helps.

I remember who I am.

But then I wake and Am again and forget what it was to remember myself when forgotten and the swirling cycle repeats.

I am dreaming less now.

I am remembering less now.

I am hoping I am awake and myself in this moment and in this now so I can tell you I am lost.

But thank you.

You tried.

I am dreaming less now.

I dreamt last night but I didn’t find you.

I found

**Statement Ends**


	2. All Roads Lead to Somewhere

Statement of Julius Westen regarding a the movements of the pavement throughout the city. Statement recorded by Jonathan Sims. The Archivist.

**Statement begins**

So you know that saying all roads lead to Rome? I think that’s the saying but anyways it like that, except Rome is here. Or the store, or the library or whatever I haven’t really figured out how to tell when the pavement is going to lead me to any one specific place and im sure, mostly that is that that’s on purpose.

Excepting for here, I can always tell when they’re going to lead here. At first I could tell because I would always be able to read the street signs as I got closer and closer to here. To Rome.

I rarely even look at them anymore, the signs for the streets that is. They never say the same thing twice and always end up telling me things I don’t want to know when I do pause to read them so ive just stopped bothering. But as I get closer to here its like I- I can’t _help_ but to look at them. To check. To know the roads that lead to here. To Rome.

So. That was how I was able to tell at first.

You know? I never really thought about coming in here before this? It just didn’t seem- worth it? I suppose? I knew you were just going to ask question after question and I really don’t have any answers for you and the ones I do have wouldn’t make sense to you no matter how many words I use to describe them so really I figured, just like the signs. Why bother?

But im here now, and im still not going to try to tell you those truths although I suppose they don’t deserve the title of such anymore becausing the fact that they’ve changed so often yet still remained as certain and true as where they began.

But im here now, but thats only really because you wouldn’t stop being Rome and all paths just led to here again and again and I figure it must be quite proud or whatever of the impossibility it just pulled.

You see thats the other way ive found to tell that this building is going to be Rome once again. It’s always after something particularly impossible has happened to me.

Of coursing the fact that its all impossible and definitely not real, but this is my reality now of roads and Romes so ive adjusted.

So I think it uses me as a tester. I think that’s why I haven’t been utterly lost yet. Im useful. Which is nice, its nice to be needed. I know it cares if I die becausing the fact that Rome can be my favorite fish n’ chips place or a adorable farmers market that ive never been to before but everyone there always knows my name.

Its nice to be cared about which is the only reason I can give for why I always come back to it. Again and once more and then once again after that.

But im here now, and im supposed to do the bragging for the pavement because it cannot will not speak to you yourself but you understand. You know how it is.

So, Rome. How would you like to hear the story of a man who was drawn so farther into the disbelieving that he lost his touch with physics?

It was quite impressive honestly. It was less so when I did it, if only becausing the fact that my pavement followed me into zero G and that very well nullified that effect really didn’t it. But with him he just stopped believing that they would effect him. I don’t know why. He was never Rome so I frankly don’t care. I just saw him on one of my streets.

He turned into that street in the end, forgot to be a person. I see his name in the street signs whenever I come close enough to you to bother to look.

And so there’s your story. Ive done the bragging or taunting or whatever that this Rome required of me and so now im off. Im already itching to leave and find where ill be led now.

Off to Roam again

**Statement ends**


	3. Hello My Name is

Statement of regarding a series of strange emails. Statement recorded by Jonathan Sims. The Archivist.

**Statement begins**

Okay so just to start off I want to say sorry about your files, because im absolutely positive that when I sat down to start filling the form out it did have a spot at the top where I should put my name. And now its not there and I have no idea if it will actually carry through and hell I don’t know, infect? The other parts of however you file this away. So maybe just don’t file it? Or see if you can put it under a pseudonym or something. That’s been what I’ve been doing for everything else, so I don’t see why it would be different here.

But yeah, that’s why i'm here.

Names.

Everyone’s got one it’s not necessarily your legal birth name or anything, some people have more than one, others have nicknames or go by middle names and to them those are their “real names.”

Its strange, what we claim as ours.

Different cultures have different connotations and expectations for names but uh, i’m not really that well informed about that and don’t want to stick my foot in my mouth so I’ll just leave it at that.

But even in different subcultures names can have different meanings. Especially online, because names don’t have as much weight there, or at least, not in the same way. Like I only know the irl names for a good half dozen of the people i'm close to online, and that’s typically just because they sent me a PayPal invoice for something. Most of the rest of the people im closest to I only know their usernames.

That’s not to say I don’t know about who they are as a person or don’t care about them, i'm genuinely close to a lot of them and share a ton of fond memories with them. Their names just really aren’t a part of that. So I think that might be one of the reasons it took me so long to realize something was wrong.

Im a writer. After a fashion. Im a writer meaning I write as my job, I get paid to write certain things and that is what I do. The actual contents of what I write take a bit more explanation.

Im not even sure how I stumbled into this, besides wanting some under the table money in uni and just never quitting, but anyways– I make my living off writing fake emails. Or real emails sometimes, but even then i'm always pretending to be the intended recipient so that’s just a different kind of fake.

If you need a fake trail of “Oh I absolutely told you about the meeting.” Or “I already filed for leave.” You come to me and I can make that conversation happen, back dated and everything. Is it a dick move? Yeah absolutely, but i'm getting paid for it so I really can’t judge. But it does mean I spend a lot of time pretending to be someone else. So I think that’s why it took me so long to realize something was wrong.

I can’t even pin down when it started. It felt like any other job at first, in fact I was about to turn it down. Too little details up front and super vague goals. Sounded like a trap honestly. So I just typed up my typical denial “Sorry but this doesn’t seem like a fit for my skills, I’m currently too busy for your project, terribly sorry, yadah yadah yadah, and was about to send it when I got distracted by something, not sure what and when I came back the email that I had apparently sent was an enthusiastic confirmation.

And I cannot stress this enough that wasn’t the email I had typed.

Honestly? I thought it was some person who had been burned coming to fuck with me. Like hahaha look at how awful it is from the outside, sending shit you didn’t actually write. And I was willing to go along with that because you know what? That would have been a just revenge, real eye for an eye type of shit, completely understandable.

Really I was just pissed at how badly they were doing it.

You have to understand, I don’t just write up a one size fits all response and slap a different email address of each time. I do my research. I read their emails, I read their social media, if I can swing it I read their texts.

I’ve long since accepted that i’m a creepy stalker and walking advert for cyber security. But! It means I know how they write, I know how to mimic them, and if the email calls for it I can typically swing some personal details that are unique to the victims.

This email had none of that finesse. It was just happy enthusiastic statement after statement all cap-ended with enough exclamation points to make a shriek break glass.

It just wasn’t me.

But I figured hey, might as well see this through, maybe let them fuck with me for a bit as like an apology or whatever. It wasn’t like I had any other projects going on at the time.

So after a few back and forths where they would send me vague and unhelpful information and I would distinctly not reply in the way that was actually sent and I finally had enough information to start the job.

And this was where it got weird. Like it already hadn’t been, but like this was where it got really weird.

I started dreaming about the emails. I would settle down to go to bed and then I’d hear the notification sound from my laptop, and suddenly id be in front of it. Typing out a response. The words never made sense, never had any grammar or meaning, just words.

And at the end I would always sign my name.

You have to understand. I don’t do that. Ever.

There is– there was a grand total of three people who I know that knew my actual legal name, and one of those is my gran. So like, signing it in an email to a random person fucking with me? Even in my dreams was something I would have never even considered. So I deleted it and chose a random name instead and sent the email.

I know I was asleep when I sent that email. But when I woke up it was right there in my outbox, fake name and all.

And it kept happening. Night after night and of course I tried everything. I locked up my laptop, gave it to a friend to hold onto for a day, left it on the tube, deleted my email account, you name it. But every morning the laptop was on my bed with a new email in the outbox. A new fake name in the sign off.

But one night I forgot. I sent off the email immediately and didn’t change my name and when I woke up it was too late.

I got an email saying thank you, and then my name, and that was it. They didn’t reply again.

But I didn’t actually notice the change. Like I said, only three people actually know my name, and they don’t, approve, of my career, so it’s not like we talk much.

I actually figured it out because my bills came without a name. Right address and everything, just no name. I checked all my cards and they didn’t have it either, called my bank, but they didn’t seem to think it was odd, even called my gran, but she wouldn’t, couldn’t, say it either. I couldn’t even say it aloud.

I know what my name is.

I know it.

I still have that.

But no one else can say it in terms of me.

No one else can even use a nickname that originated from it.

My usernames hadn’t changed though. Not a single one, and people could use those as much as they please in regards to me.

I’ve been spending much more time online recently, and like my pseudonyms are all fine, so my business isn’t affected so I just tried to move on with my life, irritated at the blank spaces in my life in the real world but quickly growing used to it. But then I made a mistake.

I got too attached to one of my usernames, and then the dreams came back.

They were from me. It was my old email address, signed by my name I couldn’t say it, couldn’t type it, but it was there. Right in front of me. And it wasn’t mine anymore. I mean it was, it was my name, it is my name still. It just– its not. Mine. Anymore.

But then after the nonsense spinning words came the end. And I thought– Stupidly. Like a fucking idiot– that I was going to sign my name and get it back. Make it mine again.

But I didn’t. I signed my username instead. The one I was using more and more because it, felt like mine. Which. I guess was the point.

And I tried so fucking hard not to fuck up. To delete it every time. But it only takes one mistake right? Just. One bad day.

And it was gone.

I’ve been much more careful now. Always changing up the names, never signing one more than another. I even made a spreadsheet and everything.

I’ve been so careful.

But I made a mistake. I got too close with someone and they were great and sweet and– actually. No.

I don’t know how this thing found me. They’re probably already in danger, but I’m not going to make it worse. I don’t know their name. Deliberately so, and im not giving you enough to find them either.

But anyways they knew me as one specific username, and we kept talking and chatting so much, and I hadn’t figured in frequency of exposure into my chart and–

The dreams are back.

I’m going to lose it.

It’s going to take everything. Every name every reference. Every bit of myself and turn it fake and pseudonyms and lies.

And I don’t think I can stop it, because its not me that signing away my names. It can’t be. I wouldn’t–

Would I?

I don’t know any more.

So i'm here so hopefully I’ll be remembered, even if you don’t have a name to do so, even ‘that dick with the fake emails and weird dreams’ works for me at this point. Just don’t forget me?

I hope this paper doesn’t change.

I’m rereading it and despite the fact its a rambling mess, its my rambling mess, so I think i'm going to give it to you now before it changes.

Sincerely,

**Statement ends.**


End file.
